Community Government

26th District candidates pitch moderate stances on taxes and Trump

While knocking doors not far from Bremerton High School on a drizzly Monday evening, Deb Krishnadasan reflects on how much her life has changed over the last year. 

Nearly 10 months ago, county officials appointed her to the vacant Senate seat in Washington’s 26th Legislative District, elevating the Gig Harbor Democrat and former school board president into state politics. 

Now, after one session in Olympia, Krishnadasan is facing voters in her notoriously competitive district for the first time. Six-term state Rep. Michelle Caldier, a Republican from Gig Harbor, is challenging her for the seat.

Close election expected

Both candidates agree the special, off-year state Senate election is going to be tight. The 26th District, spanning Gig Harbor, Port Orchard, South Kitsap County and parts of Bremerton, is one of the state’s only swing districts where races can be decided by fewer than 1,000 votes.

Perhaps it is not surprising then that both candidates strike a moderate tone. The two legislators are aiming to reach those frustrated by burdensome taxes and the direction of the state. Both say they would bring a common-sense, fiscally responsible voice to Olympia that is not afraid to vote against their own party. 

The seat is one of the only opportunities Republicans have to cut into Democrats’ majority in the Legislature. Democrats control 30 of the 49 seats in the Senate. The state party has backed Caldier — which was not a certainty given her at-times rocky relationship with her own party.

Big spending

Democrats have held the seat since 2018, when now-U.S. Rep. Emily Randall of Bremerton defeated Marty McClendon by 104 votes out of 70,070 cast. Randall won again in 2022, but resigned after winning election to Congress. Pierce County Council members and Kitsap County commissioners appointed Krishnadasan to succeed her. 

Whoever wins this fall would serve out the remaining year of Randall’s term. Another election will be held in 2026, when the seat will be up for a full, 4-year term, returning to its normal cycle. 

Caldier has out-raised Krishnadasan thus far $579,600 to $425,400, according to state public disclosure records. Outside spending — dollars not approved by the candidate — also favors Caldier. Political action committees, largely associated with big businesses, have spent $349,297 against Krishnadasan. About $25,230 has been spent against Caldier. 

During the August primary, voters backed Krishnadasan in a head-to-head contest with Caldier by a little over 1,100 votes. 

“I won,” she told one person who answered their door in Bremerton, “but not by a whole lot.” 

Trump’s Republican Party

Not long after Caldier knocks on his door, a man standing inside his home near the McCormick Woods neighborhood of Port Orchard tells her he would never vote for a Republican. “And you’re a Republican,” he said. She thanks him and moves on. 

The cordial rejection is one Caldier says she confronts frequently. Many of the voters she is trying to court are not voting against her, she says, but her party. 

Ringing doorbells in the idyllic South Kitsap neighborhood, Caldier vents her frustration about running for office as a Republican in the era of Donald Trump. 

Rep. Michelle Caldier, talks with Lou Bertone while doorbelling in Port Orchard’s McCormick Woods neighborhood on Sept. 20, 2025. Photo by Meegan M. Reid/Kitsap Sun

“It’s not me,” she says, afterward. “It’s the brand.” 

While Trump has little to do with the Senate race, Caldier says moderate and independent voters are hyper-focused on his administration and put off by the party, hurting her chances this fall. Polling conducted by the campaign, she said, found people were voting against her party, rather than for her opponent. 

Branded a ‘RINO’ in past

The longtime state representative acknowledged she agrees with some of the president’s policies, but does not describe herself as a member of the Make America Great Again wing of her party. Over the years she has been one of her party’s more moderate legislators. 

Raised in Kitsap County, Caldier spent a portion of her youth in the state foster system before eventually earning degrees from Olympic College and University of Washington School of Dentistry. She worked as a dentist prior to losing vision in her left eye due to glaucoma.  

Now residing in Gig Harbor, Caldier was first elected to the House of Representatives in 2014. She won a sixth term last year by nearly 10 points. 

This race, Caldier says marks the first time in years her own party has endorsed her. During her tenure Caldier says she has frequently been criticized for “not being Republican enough.” Some have called her a RINO, an acronym for Republican in Name Only, she said. 

During the 2023 legislative session, she briefly left the House Republican Caucus after sparring with then-party leader JT Wilcox. Around the same time, she was found to have bullied and verbally abused her staff and ordered to undergo workplace training. Caldier said the ordeal was a byproduct of her dispute with Wilcox.

Balance is campaign theme

The skirmishes and lack of support from her party, she said, are a sign of her independent approach. She says is beholden to her constituents, not her party, and always acts with them in mind.

“I stand up for people,” she said. “I’ve been beaten down by my party.”

Caldier says she wants to bring balance back to Olympia. Her campaign tells voters she wants to “end the Democrats’ supermajority after they passed the largest tax in state history” last year. 

Rep. Michelle Caldier and her nephew Conner Smith, left, get ready to head to the next house while doorbelling in Port Orchard’s McCormick Woods neighborhood on Sept. 20, 2025. Photo by Meegan M. Reid/Kitsap Sun

Democrats do not have a two-thirds supermajority in either chamber, required to, for example, put a constitutional amendment to voters. They do though have three-fifth majority in both chambers, which allows them to issue bonds. 

Caldier says “folks here are struggling” and she wants to provide relief by cutting unnecessary spending. On social media, Caldier says she has partnered with her sister, who lives in Florida, to highlight the difference in cost of living between the two states. 

 She also said it is hypocritical for Gov. Bob Ferguson and other Democrats to criticize the Trump Administration’s tariffs for increasing the cost of living, after they passed significant tax increases last year.  

Facing an estimated $16 billion budget shortfall over the next four years, the Democrat-controlled Legislature approved about $9 billion in new taxes. That included expanding its sales tax and a 6 cent per gallon hike on gas. 

Opportunities are not there

Krishnadasan, notably, voted against her party’s major tax initiatives and transportation bill that included the gas tax, which Caldier acknowledged. The incumbent Democrat pointed out she introduced a bill to lower the state sales tax rate, although it did not get a vote. 

Affordability and education are what Krishnadasan says will be her main focus should voters give her another year in the Legislature. She says she wants to bring a common-sense approach to Olympia that works across the aisle and make the state more affordable for young people. 

Krishnadasan highlighted that all the bills she sponsored that passed last year came with bipartisan support. She said her biggest accomplishments were legislation that removed barriers to opening child-care centers in rural areas and codified the right of pregnant women to access emergency medical care. 

Sen. Deb Krishnadasan pauses while rounding the the corner of Pennsylvania Avenue in Bremerton on Sept. 29, 2025.

In the future, she wants to focus on rebuilding early education programs. Not everyone needs to go to college, she says, but there needs to be more investment in alternative pathways to keep students engaged. It is also crucial for the state to rebuild its Early Childhood Education and Assistance Program, also known as ECEAP, she said, which provides preschool programs for low-income families and was cut last year.

“Early education is so critical,” she said. “It sets kids on the right path.”

Background in education

Education has driven much of Krishnadasan’s political career. After growing up in Puyallup, she became the first in her family to attend and later graduate from college, earning a bachelor’s degree from Western Washington University. 

Krishnadasan says she has spent 18 years volunteering in local schools, including two terms on the Peninsula School Board. Her major achievement was leading a successful bond campaign for Peninsula in 2019, which built the district’s first new elementary schools in three decades.

The success of that campaign was a major reason she was appointed to fill Emily Randall’s Senate seat last year. Now, after a term in Olympia, she will face her first competitive election before voters, having run unopposed in both her school board contests. 

Krishnadasan says she is running to help young people, like her own children, find a pathway to economic success.

Sen. Deb Krishnadasan talks with David Hartman as he looks over her campaign literature on the porch of his home in Bremerton on Sept. 29, 2025. Photo by Meegan M. Reid/Kitsap Sun

On the steps of a home in Bremerton, Krishnadasan speaks with a mom and her son, a student at Olympic College who says he’s studying computer science, about the cost of living. The consensus they reach is he will not be able to buy his own home if things don’t change.

“I have three kids in their 20s,” Krishnadasan tells them. “The opportunities I had when I was their age aren’t there anymore.”

Ballots for the Nov. 4 general election will be mailed on Oct. 17.